It sounds like Thurston has given up on trying to push his song writing. "Burroughs" seems like it could have appeared on The Eternal, which also sounded a lot like lazy songwriting. The last great group of songs that SY wrote (mostly introduced by Thurst) were on Sonic Nurse.

I wish he would try harder I guess...

For years I've been saying that Thurston's solo work usually just sounds like Sonic Youth minus the rest of the band. Sure, Thurston often brought in a skeleton...but Lee would bring it to life, so to speak.

I do feel Demolished Thoughts is amongst his better solo attempts. I mean, it was different at least.

His "noisy" solo stuff is usually boring-to-unlistenable (sans some of his collaborative efforts..esp. those w/ Nels Cline). I tend to leave the noisier/improv stuff to Lee.